Sep 15, 2003

Fix the Senate

Get rid of some senators

The U.S. Senate over-represents rural and farm interests. One Wyoming bartender's vote can outweigh 58 Oakland bar patron's votes in the U.S. Senate. This adversely effects our foreign policy and our foreign aid. The maldistribution of Senate power creates other problems, but the harmful effects on third world farmers is sufficient to warrant a change.

How do we bring about a change?

The Congress (House and Senate) can decide by majority vote how many people constitute a state. The Congress created all but the first 13 states, by a simple vote.

I propose that any state that has a population below the population of the two smallest of the original 13 states reverts to territory status.

Vermont and Delaware are the two smallest original states with an average population in 2000 of 700,000

Congress could get rid of three states with six senators: North Dakota with 662,000 people, Wyoming with 525,000 people and Alaska with 650,000 people.

'Will reducing the number of Senators really make a difference?' you might ask. The answer is that the moment a bill is introduced in the House and Senate to turn three states into three territories, the dynamics of Senate voting will be forever changed, for the better.

With their heads in a noose, it will be clear to many senators that they can be heavily outvoted by urban representatives on the one issue that matters to them, their own survival in the Senate. From the moment such a return-to-territories bill is introduced most farm state Senators will be much more willing to negotiate on issues that they now treat as sacrosanct.

Farm subsidies will be treated as serious business with $30-$50 billion being given as a gift to a third of one percent of the population, most of whom don't actually live in farm states.

Comments

Fix the Senate

Get rid of some senators

The U.S. Senate over-represents rural and farm interests. One Wyoming bartender's vote can outweigh 58 Oakland bar patron's votes in the U.S. Senate. This adversely effects our foreign policy and our foreign aid. The maldistribution of Senate power creates other problems, but the harmful effects on third world farmers is sufficient to warrant a change.

How do we bring about a change?

The Congress (House and Senate) can decide by majority vote how many people constitute a state. The Congress created all but the first 13 states, by a simple vote.

I propose that any state that has a population below the population of the two smallest of the original 13 states reverts to territory status.

Vermont and Delaware are the two smallest original states with an average population in 2000 of 700,000

Congress could get rid of three states with six senators: North Dakota with 662,000 people, Wyoming with 525,000 people and Alaska with 650,000 people.

'Will reducing the number of Senators really make a difference?' you might ask. The answer is that the moment a bill is introduced in the House and Senate to turn three states into three territories, the dynamics of Senate voting will be forever changed, for the better.

With their heads in a noose, it will be clear to many senators that they can be heavily outvoted by urban representatives on the one issue that matters to them, their own survival in the Senate. From the moment such a return-to-territories bill is introduced most farm state Senators will be much more willing to negotiate on issues that they now treat as sacrosanct.

Farm subsidies will be treated as serious business with $30-$50 billion being given as a gift to a third of one percent of the population, most of whom don't actually live in farm states.